23 October 2014

Alleged Yeast Infection Makes the South Rise Again

#gam3rgate. Looks like the Klan. Probably is the Klan based on apparent "racial" composition (no, this is not more orc-bashing; I mean the actual gam3rs, not their characters)... and apparent orientation toward Grand Dragons and Imperial Wizards...

What, you think I'm being too harsh on the bigots throwing temper tantrums over girl cooties being sprinkled in their suddenly-visible-to-the-public-at-large clubhouses by comparing them to murderous self-appointed aristocrats and defenders of the faith who lynched thousands of Americans based on ancestry, instead of just limiting themselves to being playground bullies? I guess you didn't read about the successful effort to suppress a target's speech in an academic forum with threats of mass murder. Neither have you read their various screeds, which should probably be renamed from #gam3rgate to The Protocols of the Elders of Mulgore based on their interesting ability to blame everything that is unsatisfactory in their lives on the Jews girls. Go read Felicia Day's and Chris Kluwe's reactions instead, and ask yourself whether #gam3rgate bears a disturbing resemblance to Birmingham under Bull Connor. You just might learn something about both, if you don't already know.

I was a gam3r back in the days when Greyhawk was literally the newest thing on the market, when Empire of the Petal Throne was a commercially viable and frequently played campaign (at least among the cognoscenti), before Traveller, before one could buy twenty-sided dice at chain bookstores, when one had to manually add up armor class and figure to-hit probabilities on paper. Using an actual pencil. Perhaps I don't understand the "modern" electronic gam3rs (they don't even need a table, or graph paper for mapping! no DM screen!), but I've got a bit more than an inkling of what a subculture that has hidden itself for a while and suddenly discovers that it's gone mainstream can become.

There used to be a meme that "On the 'net, nobody knows that you're a dog." These days, knowing whether someone is a dog is probably irrelevant; I've known pit bulls with greater tolerance and better personalities than some of the trolls masquerading as gam3ers on the 'net. And, for that matter, better grooming and less slobber.